Pakistan in Media

Daily Times, Pakistan
ANALYSIS: Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi

The on-going Swat operation has inflicted serious damage on the Taliban and the myth of their invincibility has been damaged to such an extent that new recruits will think twice before signing up

The massive May 27 terrorist bombing in Lahore is the latest evidence — as if further evidence is still needed — of the Taliban’s growing challenge to Pakistan’s internal stability and security. The Lahore attack was followed by two more bombings in Peshawar and a suicide-attack in Dera Ismail Khan the next day.

Deputy chief of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, claimed responsibility for the Lahore attack and asked people to vacate Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Multan as the Taliban were planning “major attacks on government facilities in the coming days and weeks” in these cities.

Pakistan now faces a serious internal war, something its official circles denied in the past, spearheaded by religious militants that are attempting to overwhelm the Pakistani state, government and society. These extremists use religion to cover up their actual agenda of establishing a territorial domain to pursue their international religious-ideological plans.

The Taliban and their allied groups based in Punjab have resorted to these bombings in order to deter the government and the army from pursuing the Swat operation. They also want to restrain Pakistan from taking similar action in the tribal areas. The militants think that a number of bombings in quick succession will build enough public pressure to stop military action in Malakand.

The other message from the Taliban is that they will take their war to any part of Pakistan if the security forces do not pull back. They have connections with local militant and sectarian groups that act as their hosts and facilitators in cities across Pakistan. These local facilitators could be a local extremist/sectarian group, based at a mosque or a madrassa where the terrorists park themselves and work towards completing their terrorist mission.

Punjab, especially Lahore, has been selected for some major terrorist attacks in the recent past because of the province’s (and the city’s) importance in Pakistan politics and economy. Punjab is also well-represented in the army, the bureaucracy and intelligence agencies. From the Taliban perspective, instability in Punjab will have negative implications for a large number of people and would deeply affect the Pakistani civil and military establishment.

Militancy has developed deep roots in Punjab over the years. Some of the most well known militant and sectarian groups are based in the province. These groups have cultivated links with the Taliban for training and safe havens in the tribal areas. Some Punjabi militants are said to be fighting with the Taliban in the tribal areas and Afghanistan. Naturally, it is easy for the Taliban to operate in the Punjab through these linkages.

The strongest opposition to the current security operation in Malakand is coming from Islamist elements in Punjab. The Jama’at-e Islami, spearheading opposition to the Swat operation, has its headquarters in Lahore. A number of other religious parties opposed to military operations are also primarily based in Punjab. A good number of religious leaders demanding an end to the Swat operation also hail from the Punjab. Most non-Pashtun militant groups, such as the Lashkar-e Tayba and Sipah-e Sahaba, have a strong Punjabi background.

It is interesting to note that a large number of journalists, political commentators and writers in the vernacular press that express varying degrees of support to militancy and oppose the current military operation hail from Punjab. They raise a host of themes, i.e. direct or indirect opposition to military operation, sympathy for the Taliban, accusing Pakistani authorities of killing its Muslim citizens in order to satisfy the US or to get economic assistance, and that Pakistani rulers should be afraid of God rather than the US.

There are similar dynamics of opposition to US drone attacks in the tribal areas. Most vocal criticism comes from the activists of Islamist political parties all over Pakistan or from political activists from Punjab. The issue does not resonate so much with political activists from other provinces that do not identify with Islamist parties.

This does not mean that there is no support for the Swat operation in Punjab. In fact, this support is more pronounced than the opposition by Islamist parties. Similarly, there is enough evidence available to suggest that politically active circles, societal groups and others oppose religious extremism and militancy. This sentiment has increased against the backdrop of the political developments leading up to the operation and the pushing back of the Taliban by the military in Malakand. The only exceptions to this approach are Islamist parties, a section of pro-Taliban religious leaders and Imran Khan’s PTI.

The key issue is that sympathy and support for Islamist militancy and the Taliban, and criticism of the Swat operation, is also pronounced in Punjab. A logical follow up of this argument is that anti-Americanism is equally pronounced in the province.

Given the centrality of Punjab in Pakistani politics and administration as well as the dynamics of support for Islamist militancy, the Taliban leadership made an understandable decision to take the internal war into Punjab. More attacks can take place here in the future; and the Taliban, through these attacks, hope to compel the government to review its counterinsurgency policy.

The Swat operation has for the first time dislodged the Taliban from some areas. They are expected to lose effective control of the Swat valley and adjoining areas very shortly. This setback will have three major implications for the Taliban movement.

First, the Taliban will find it difficult to find new recruits. In the past, participation in the Taliban movement gave status and power to the poor and dispossessed. There was hardly any cost for the militants because the Pakistani state did not fully challenge them. The on-going Swat operation has inflicted serious damage on the Taliban and the myth of their invincibility has been damaged to such an extent that new recruits will think twice before signing up.

Second, the success of the Swat operation will be a morale booster for the security forces and the government. The top civilian and military leadership appears to have come to the conclusion now that the Taliban and similar groups can no longer be allowed to function in defiance of the state.

Third, this will also help remove doubts at the international level about the capacity and willingness of the Pakistan military and government to take on the Taliban. This will also weaken the propaganda that the Taliban might one day overwhelm the Pakistani state and gain access to nuclear weapons and materials.

Pakistan’s civilian and military authorities must be pleased about the successes in Swat. But there is a long way to go to restore the primacy of the state and remove the causes of extremism and militancy. Challenges exist not only in the tribal areas but also in mainland Pakistan where some militant groups continue to hold ground and disparate Islamist elements tend to support or sympathise with them for one reason or another.

Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi is a political and defence analyst.
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